Speaker
Description
Keywords: Asteroid Threat Exercise, Earth Impact Effects, Impact Monitoring
Abstract
If the mitigation efforts do not succeed to alter the trajectory of 2024 PDC25, the
asteroid will impact near Cape Town, South Africa, depositing 250 megatons of energy
and creating a crater of about 3 km in diameter. If this happens it would be of obvious
interest to observe this impact in as much detail as possible.
It is proposed to populate the impact area with suitable sensors and probes, ranging
from drones in various altitudes in the atmosphere to the surface and below.
The expected phenomena include electromagnetic interactions with the atmosphere
and with the target material; pressure waves and acoustics in the air and on the
ground; events in the plasma and in the fireball, observable with suitable
spectrometers. Seismometer data can be combined with data from CTBTO. High
precision GNSS data, using differential GPS, could also be useful. Detailed satellite
monitoring, including using radar and radio signal monitoring instrumentation, would
also be of benefit. After an impact, an effort to reach the impact site to study the
distribution of rock types and take a variety of samples, and also to monitor the
temperature development of the crater fill rock, would be advantageous.
The goal of this presentation is to develop a strategy for these observations in terms
of requirements, capabilities, feasibility, and data sampling and storage. Suggestions
will be made as to the type of equipment, transmission frequencies and bandwidth.
The data can be collected in a suitable data base and combined with data obtained
from satellites and other remote sensing platforms. In this manner a full digital model
of the impact event can be constructed.